Independent Review of Net Zero

Kerry McCarthy Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I thank my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West for that enthusiastic endorsement. May I welcome the new Minister to his place and thank the right hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore), another constituency neighbour, for authoring this important review? As the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) said, it was a Herculean task, and I know how much effort the right hon. Gentleman put into it and how many meetings he had to have. I also thank him for being so open to briefing MPs from all parts of the House about the report’s contents since it was published.

The hon. Member for Waveney also said it is vital that the Government act as a catalyst, so I hope he listens avidly to what I have to say a bit later in my speech about what a Labour Government would do with our green prosperity plan. I certainly agree that this Government could do more to act as a catalyst. I might leave it to the new Minister to respond to the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), who does not like solar on agricultural land, does not like onshore wind, and says there is not much point doing anything because China is not doing anything. As the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) pointed out, that is not quite the case. I point out that we are hoping that the Government will produce a land-use strategy before too long, which will hopefully thrash out some of these issues, such as the balance between making sure that good agricultural land is used for food growing and having solar.

My hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) talked about the local context, how enthusiastic young people in her constituency are, the impact of Heathrow and the fact that new social housing should be low carbon, as well as electric vehicle charging infrastructure, which is a subject dear to my heart. She said that local leaders need support to deliver this agenda. The right hon. Member for Kingswood will know what Bristol is doing on that front in trying to lead the way in becoming a net zero city. Again, I thank him for his support on that as a near Bristol MP.

My hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) mentioned the creation of the new Department, which I welcome. I just hope that the net zero and climate change side of it does not get too swamped by the energy side, because the Government have made pretty good progress on decarbonising the energy sector. Much more, however, needs to be done in other sectors, and as the report we are discussing today says, there needs to be faster progress on that. It cannot just be seen as the energy Department with the occasional reference to other aspects of achieving net zero.

This report makes clear what we have known for some time now: this Government are failing to grasp the economic opportunities that come with net zero. I am pleased that the report is so unambivalent about the benefits that can come from a transition to a greener economy. It calls it

“the economic opportunity of the 21st century.”

We know this report was originally commissioned to take the heat off a Government who were hellbent on doubling down on polluting expensive fossil fuels, regardless of the cost to the taxpayer or planet. The then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) desperately needed political cover while she tried to push through her attempts to bring back fracking and ban new solar developments. Thankfully she did not stick around for long enough to do that.

We hoped that the next prime Minister would learn from the mistakes of his predecessor and embrace climate action as the huge economic opportunity that we know it to be. However, what were his first moves in office? He sacked the President of the COP26 climate summit, tried to duck out of attending COP27, attempted to resurrect the ban on onshore wind and was whizzing around the country by private jet, which I gather he was at again this morning. Those are hardly the actions of a climate champion.

Given that context of two Prime Ministers who, let us be frank, clearly could not care less about the climate, I am pleased that this review is not the greenwash many of us expected it to be. It does a comprehensive job of highlighting the many areas where the Government are falling woefully short in getting us to net zero. It makes clear that constant U-turns and lack of continuity make it impossible to plan and invest. All the businesses that I speak to in my role are telling me that time and again. They do not care about the politics of who is doing it; they just want that certainty, stability and sense of direction. It is clear also that the Government are not doing enough to make green technologies affordable for ordinary households. It is clear that this Government’s decision to axe support for home insulation in 2013 is the reason for plummeting energy efficiency improvements. It is clear that this Government have failed to set out a proper plan to restore nature or balance land-use pressures. It is crystal clear that we are falling behind in the global race to seize the economic opportunities of net zero.

That last point is particularly important. The review states that we must act quickly

“to cement the UK as a prime destination for international capital”.

Economic opportunities are being missed today because of weaknesses in the UK’s investment environment. The right hon. Member for Kingswood mentioned falling behind the curve—we are in danger of doing that.

These missed opportunities are blindingly obvious to anyone paying attention. We have lost Britishvolt in Blythe, the electric Mini in Oxford and Arrival’s electric vans in Bicester, and we are losing our steel industry piece by piece. It was worrying to hear the new Business and Trade Secretary being asked this week whether Britain would retain a steel industry. She said:

“Nothing is ever a given.”

We need to green and retain our steel industry here. Other nations are not facing the exodus of jobs but are actively encouraging their own green industries. They understand that green investment pays for itself. The United States has just announced unprecedented support for green industries through the $369 billion Inflation Reduction Act. Much of that support is linked to support for domestic green industries and designed to attract investment from overseas, too. The European Union has been quick and clear in its response to that Act, with more support for green industries that need it, and proposals for a net zero industry Act and a critical raw materials Act.

How has the UK responded? With a deafening and perplexing silence. I tabled a named day question on the first day back in January asking what our response to the Inflation Reduction Act would be. I keep being told that the Government are not ready to reply. I asked about that at International Trade questions this morning and I think the Minister of State, Department for Business and Trade, the hon. Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani) had a slip of the tongue and replied that she was talking to green lithium companies about investing in the US. I suspect that she meant the UK. But there was not a concrete response to IRA and there needs to be if we are not to be left behind.

We should be seizing the initiative, not sitting on our hands. The Government should work night and day to ensure that we do not lose a penny more in green investment because of the failure to make the UK attractive to green industries, especially those at the cutting edge of innovation. The companies doing something new and taking the risks really need that Government support and catalyst that the hon. Member for Waveney talked about. I hope the Minister tells us whether and how the Government are planning to respond to the huge international investment in green industries. Or have they simply given up?

As much as I welcome the report’s findings, it has only told us what we already know about the Government’s progress towards net zero. We are simply not going far or fast enough. The right hon. Member for Kingswood is far from alone in that opinion. His report is merely the latest in a string of scathing assessments of this Government’s record on climate change. The Climate Change Committee said in last year’s progress report that the Government’s climate strategy “will not deliver” net zero. The High Court said that the net zero strategy is unlawful and inadequate. How many times do the Government need to be told that before they get their act together? Given the repeated warnings about the snail’s pace progress towards net zero, the huge uncertainty for investors and the staggering lack of ambition on crucial policy areas, I have little faith that the Government will finally step up a gear. I hope that the creation of the new Department is a sign that it will, but we will be there to hold them to account if they do not.

If this Government do not act, the next Labour Government will. We have put forward a transformative agenda for Government, with a fairer, greener future at the core. We will invest £28 billion per year to tackle the climate emergency through our green prosperity plan, which will allow us to insulate 19 million homes within a decade; to deliver a clean power system by 2030; to establish GB Energy, a publicly owned clean energy company to ensure the benefits of our green investments are returned to the taxpayer; and to set up a national wealth fund to invest in those green industries that the Government seem happy to ignore and drive overseas. That means investment in new gigafactories, renewable-ready ports, green steel plants, green hydrogen, net zero industrial clusters and carbon capture and storage. It means good green jobs and growth for every corner of the UK. That is the kind of vision that this report makes clear is necessary. It is the kind of vision that British industry and this country are crying out for.